Manassas, Woodbridge, Nokesville, Gainesville, etc. (Arlington, Alexandria: house, job market, neighborhood)

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by Deeman804

Where in Minnesota is it unsafe and expensive? This comes to mind especially when you consider that the places mentioned are 30 miles+ away from the closest major city. Just wondering

I don't think the poster was referring to Minnesota as being unsafe but rather all the areas she's be researching in NoVA.

[Momo4k]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

I don't think the poster was referring to Minnesota as being unsafe but rather all the areas she's be researching in NoVA.

Correct!

Originally Posted by stpickrell

What are you getting from DC that you're not getting from MN?

#1. No more travel from MN to DC on business. This is a marriage/family priority.
#2. A better (more interesting and fulfilling) job for my husband within a company that he already has a good deal of seniority (read: stability). How cool is it when Dad likes and is challenged by his job, instead of just being 'OK' or simply to provide? Can I hear an amen from those who grew up with unhappy dads?
#3. 4-day workweeks. Long days, granted. And even longer if we end up choosing the Manassas area as the Point A for the commute to downtown DC. But every Friday off? Priceless.
#4. The option (haven't totally made that leap) of acreage. There's no train in MN. If you want to live in the country, you drive.

So the real kicker is the commute. Some criticize us and say we'll lose as much family time to the commute as we would to travel. You'd have to experience that life to really get the ramifications of travel on your wife and kids. Anyway...

If we take 'greater Manassas' (for lack of a better term for the outlying areas south, west, etc.) we could be looking at a 10-20 minute drive to the VRE/OmniBus and then the 75-minute train-to-metro or bus route (on a good day as I understand it). He says he's willing, but I would think it would get old pretty quickly.

Would love to hear if anyone's been making the trip successfully and sanely for a long period of time.

Thanks, everyone; every response has been immensely helpful...even the questions.

[vermonter16]

My neighbor has been making the trip on the VRE for a few years now. In fact, lots of our neighbors do. I think that is because they can just relax on the train. My sister-in-law did it as well. The VRE is a few minutes by car and a 10 minute walk from where we live. But my sister-in-law had a 10 minute commute to the train. A lot of people at work take the Omni to the metro but the Omni Commuter bus also goes to DC.

[michgc]

I think the problem with your plan is that 4 long days probably translates into your husband traveling home late in the evenings. And as I understand it, the VRE does not run late. You might want to check the train schedules to see if this would fit in his work schedule: Rail service in Virginia - VRE

Do you have to have acreage? If family harmony/happiness is a priority, a shorter commute will contribute substantially to that. Just my two cents.

[Momo4k]

Oh we've studied those schedules, all right...bus schedules, train schedules...the painful part, I think, will be the getting up for the 5 a.m. departure. Go back to sleep for an hour, I guess.

[wsamon]

Where in DC will he be working? Is it walkable from one of the VRE stations? If not, that's going to be an absolutely miserable commute. That means that he has two major connections / transfers that he has to worry about each way. If he misses one of them that could screw everything up royally. I don't think that either the trains or the buses come particularly frequently (no I didn't look at the schedules yet). That will add additional stress on top of the regular stress of the commute.

Driving + Metro (Woodbridge)
----------------------------
I did a commute that would be similar to the Woodbridge one for about 4 years. I lived out in Centreville and worked in the middle of the city. I had to drive the 12 miles to the Vienna station (I couldn't rely on timing buses with my job), then catch the metro from the end of the line, and take that into the city (thankfully with no transfers). My office was right above the station so I didn't have to walk anywhere. Door-to-door this took me anywhere from about 75 to 90 minutes on an average day. That included about 25 - 35 minutes of miserable driving (especially if I was running late or had an early meeting, etc.).

I typically worked 10 - 12 hour days, much like your husband will, except that I did 5 of them instead of 4. If you start doing the math: 10 hours of work + 1 hour of lunch & breaks + 3 hours of commuting + 1 hour of getting ready for work + 30 min of unwinding (trust me he'll need it) + 30 min of eating dinner + 8 hours of sleep = 24 hours. There is NO time for personal time, let alone family time on these days. Granted, your mileage may vary somewhat (for example, I rarely slept more than 4 or 5 hours, and almost never took lunch breaks) but there is no getting around that any day he works will be both long and stressful.

You might as well consider all work days obliterated from his perspective. On top of that, you may get to really enjoy the extra day free for a while, but the long work days and commute will eventually catch up to him and he will start needing that day to rest. Even if he enjoys his work and it re-energizes him, no one likes spending 3 hours a day commuting, most of it in bumper to bumper traffic or shoulder to shoulder with people on a subway.

VRE (Manassas, etc.)
---------------------
I have a friend that does a VERY similar schedule. (Your husband doesn't happen to work for the IRS does he?). He lives in Manassas Park (between Manassas and Centreville) and does the 4 10 hour days schedule. His one saving grace is that he gets 1 work from home day each week so he only has to do the commute 3 days. He said that without this he doesn't think he'd be able to stand it.

Anyway, his schedule (to the best of my knowledge - I'll verify with him tomorrow) goes something like this: drive about 5-10 minutes to the VRE station at about 6:15am. Take the train into Union Station and walk from there to his building. This puts him into the office around 7:45 to 8am. He works until around 7pm and catches the last train home. He gets back to his house sometime around 8.

If I remember right, he said that the VRE is comfortable and far less crowded than the metro but it was loud and he couldn't sleep on it very well. Overall he likes the commute more (we were roommates in Centreville), but those days are still destroyed and he said it would be a stretch for him to do that even one more time a week. He's hoping to eventually get a second work from home day to make it far more palatable.

Cost
-----
Keep in mind that none of these options are cheap! A metro trip from the end of the line to Union Station will cost you about $5 each way. Throw in another $5 for parking and you're looking at $15 / day = $60 / week = $240 / month. Similarly, a monthly VRE pass from the Manassas area is $235 / month. If his job is not providing vouchers to reduce the out-of-pocket cost then this is a big monthly hit to the budget. Think of how much more you could get with an extra $240 / month to spend on mortgage or rent.

Now throw in the value of time / opportunity cost. Even valued at only $10 / hour for additional time with him and reducing his stress, that's an extra $320 / month of value if you can knock his commute time down from 90 minutes each way to 30. Therefore, assuming that you have the raw income and financial backing to afford this (big assumption, I know), you're looking at roughly an extra $500 / month to put towards getting a home that's closer to his job, less stressful on all of you, provides more time with him, and is even close to many amenities like different grocery stores, restaurants, activities for you and your kids, etc..

[wsamon]

One thing that I'd like to point out - and I don't mean this in any kind of scathing or derogatory manor - I feel that you're approaching this situation wrong. With a good mind-set, yes, but wrong. It sounds like you're trying to get the same sort of setup that you had in Minnesota, just here in DC where your husband works.

The fact is that you're moving into a very different city in a very different area of the country. The DC metro area has something like 70% more people than the Twin Cities metro area. It's a more international city with one of the most educated and politically powerful workforces in the US, and jobs, salaries, and costs to match. It's in the highly urbanized, fast-paced northeast corridor which has a very different lifestyle than that found in the mid-west.

There are many great things about this area, and I think that DC will be a great place to provide your children with the sort of "hands-on, interactive homeschooling" that I think you're trying to provide them (great idea BTW). This will be an amazing place to teach them about history, especially American (monuments, museums, historic homes, plantations, etc.), science (Smithsonian, NASA, tech companies), politics (duh), other cultures (embassies, restaurants, diverse population), arts (museums, concert halls, art exhibitions, restaurants, etc.) and tolerance, among other things.

But it does not have the same great things that Minnesota has. Each of these areas has their own pluses and minuses. You need to look to accentuate the positives of the area you're moving into and reduce the negatives. Don't try to drag a square-peg lifestyle from a previous location and smash it into a circular-hole of a city. You'll wind up with your family caught in between the two. If you want acreage and horse-back riding lessons for the kids then your husband shouldn't have taken a job in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country (and with one of the worst average commute times to boot). Since he did, and for good reasons, then IMO you should put some of the more "country" stuff on the back-burner for a while and enjoy the unique benefits the area has to offer. Maybe rent somewhere until he's able to start working from home some or transfer to a different office that's either closer to where you want to live (say a Fairfax one) or in a different city altogether.

Oh, and as an FYI, I don't know what horseback riding lessons usually cost, but $70 / hour around here isn't a ton of money. Personally, I don't see any reason why a horseback riding lesson should cost less than the labor of a mechanic. It's a less common skill that is most often associated with more affluent families; a luxury item if you will.

[vermonter16]

I don't take the VRE although I live right near it. I work in Arlington so it would not be very helpful to me. My day begins at 3:15am, on the road by 4:05am, at work at about 4:30 - 4:45am and then home by 4pm. I have been doing this for just about 5 years now and this is 5 days a week. You can 'technically' get used to anything. I don't love it, but it isn't unbearable. I don't even care for my job, I'm just happy to have one ! I take full advantage on the weekends and live for 3 day weekends!

But, my husband has a rather close commute, works four days a week, but it might as well be 4 - 24 hour days according to him.

I think some people just handle things differently. Stuck in traffic at times I do get frustrated but generally I just listen to my music and use the time in the car as my time....to think, to sing, or whatever. I just try to make the best of it.

[ChristineVA]

Since we are talking about commutes:

Coming from Woodbridge, I ride in with a coworker. We live the house at 5:15 a.m. and are at our desks at 6:00 a.m. in DC. We leave at 2:30 p.m. and work 5 days a week. Despite being eligible for a government subsidy if I used public trans, I don't do it because my time is WAY more important to me. For me to take the VRE, I have about a 5 mile trip (easy enough) the station. Park, wait for train, take train into DC, probably to Union Station or wherever it stops, hop on the Metro, get off the Metro and have about a 1 mile walk to my office building. That would take me MUCH longer than my 40 minute drive.

These are all things to look at. Sometimes driving is the better way to go, sometimes working god-awful early hours is the way to go.

[vermonter16]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

Since we are talking about commutes:

Coming from Woodbridge, I ride in with a coworker. We live the house at 5:15 a.m. and are at our desks at 6:00 a.m. in DC. We leave at 2:30 p.m. and work 5 days a week. Despite being eligible for a government subsidy if I used public trans, I don't do it because my time is WAY more important to me. For me to take the VRE, I have about a 5 mile trip (easy enough) the station. Park, wait for train, take train into DC, probably to Union Station or wherever it stops, hop on the Metro, get off the Metro and have about a 1 mile walk to my office building. That would take me MUCH longer than my 40 minute drive.

These are all things to look at. Sometimes driving is the better way to go, sometimes working god-awful early hours is the way to go.

Good point! Mass transit doesn't work for a lot of people depending on the hours they work, where they work, etc.